


paper dreams

by difranxo



Series: in the bunker [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bunker, Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Flashback, Fluff, Humor, Love, Romance, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 18:39:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14338629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/difranxo/pseuds/difranxo
Summary: Abby and Marcus disagree on how they first met.





	paper dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Niall Horan’s “Seeing Blind.”

When Marcus returned with dinner, she scrunched her nose in disgust when she saw what abomination he brought along in her otherwise peaceful evening. 

“Again?”

“Try not to think about it,” he said before setting the plate down in front of her.

_Broccoli._

“This is ridiculous,” she sighed, pushing the plate away. “It’s been a month.”

She knows she’s probably coming off as childish but she does have a completely valid reason: she _loathes_ broccoli. And secondly, she’d been working especially hard dealing with food poisoning from spoiled meat (hence, the broccoli) and the stress from the past month has left her craving for anything but broccoli.

She hasn’t failed to mention this to Marcus every time she gets the chance but he always dismisses her. Something about being in a different department, her ass.

“Abby, you’re a doctor,” he counters, as if it weren’t obvious, while waving a fork at her in playful chiding. “You’re supposed to be advocating for vegetables, not the other way around.

Marcus could only laugh as she sent a sneering look his way from across the room. A normal person would have flinched but he’d been at the receiving end of her dirty looks for so long now that it feels nothing but customary. He’d be concerned if she _didn’t_ stare daggers at him when it warranted such a reaction.

“Don’t patronize me, Mr. Head of the Security Department.”

She turned back to her work, ignoring his giggling because this is not a laughing matter. She forced herself to devour her dinner as quickly as she can, not wanting to suffer longer than she needed to.

An hour had passed and Abby slumped back into her chair after finishing a quite lengthy medical report.

She can hear Marcus humming softly from the couch, tapping away on his tablet. The domesticity of it all is making her heart swell with happiness. Being trapped underground isn’t so bad, she thinks, when her days tend to end like this. 

They usually like to settle down in either one of their offices to do work until they finally decide to turn in. They often end up spending the night on the couch when they don’t particularly feel like trudging through the endless corridors to get to their quarters.

And sometimes they just talk, paperwork laying forgotten on the floor. They sit together on opposite sides of the couch facing each other, their legs tangled in front of them. She likes those better.

It’s the kind of contentment and peace she hasn’t been accustomed to since being on the Ark. And she figures it’s the first time for him to be so at ease in the presence of another. She never remembered Marcus to stay with a woman for more than a few months. Even then, he never seemed to be in the headspace to take a break from his duties. He probably spent more time with her anyways, arguing and yelling about matters they refused to compromise in.

In times like these, she likes to think about how much he has changed over the last few years. Never had she imagined finding home in the arms of Marcus Kane, the man who almost floated her and arrested her daughter. 

But that isn’t him now. Somehow, being on the ground changed him, or maybe it was her. She remembered him when they were younger, and it occurred to her that he was always meant to become the compassionate man he is now, not the one he was on the Ark.

And as if he had read her mind, he spoke. “Do you remember how we first met?”

Abby looked up from the stack of papers she was staring at to the man lounging on her couch. He had an irritatingly charming grin on his face, as if challenging her somehow.

“Yeah,” she chuckled. “My life flashed before my eyes.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

She spun suddenly in her seat, turning completely so that she faced him.

“Marcus, I woke up on a hospital bed.”

She raised her eyebrow at him, pleased in gaining the upper hand in this seemingly spontaneous subject of conversation.

“Do you remember the first thing you said to me?”

“You’re an asshole?” She smirked as Marcus rolled his eyes. Never did his younger self realize that it wouldn’t be the last time she would call him that.

“No, you said that after.”

She looked at him intently, genuinely trying to figure out what she had said to him. Her memory has been hazy as of late and it’s been decades, for god’s sakes.

“You had a dream…” he hinted, obviously trying to lead this somewhere. 

A lightbulb had switched on in her brain, and she slapped her hand on her thigh as she finally remembered.

“Thats right.”

She seemed so exhilarated at her sudden trip down memory lane. She smiled wildly as she started to recall how it all started.

_She was walking down a hallway, her face buried in a book as she headed towards an exam. The next thing she knew, she collided with something hard._

_The collision sent her reeling back forcefully towards the other wall, hitting her head on the hard steel and knocking her out instantly._

_She would realize after waking up from a two-day coma that the something she smashed into was a someone. She would also learn that his name was Marcus and that he looked particularly endearing._

_She found him sleeping on a chair next to her bed. She spent the next half hour discerning him, mystified and amused. He had a ridiculously thick mane for a hair that curled in every direction. It covered his face and she wanted to brush it off, somehow wanting quite desperately to see what his eyes looked like._

_She didn’t realize that his book was lying next to her on the bed so that when she stirred, it fell to the ground, the clatter jerking him awake._

_“Hello,” he said, a bit flustered as he stood up and moved closer to her side, his book abandoned by his feet._

_“I was a doctor…” she whispered as she looked at him. Her dream suddenly came back to her with startingly vivid accuracy. She was wearing a white coat, tending to a little girl who bruised her knees..._

_“What?”_

_She drew away from her trance and focused on the mysterious young man in front of her. He looked confused._

_“And that you’re an asshole.”_

_His eyes widened in shock but it faded soon enough when he realized that she wasn’t angry. She was smiling._

_“I think I prefer Marcus,” he whispered shyly._

_She laughed and little did she know, it was quite possibly the most beautiful sound Marcus has ever heard in his life. He thought she was absolutely radiant._

_But her cheerful mood suddenly turned into one of concern. He was about to ask what’s wrong when-_

_“I missed my entrance exam. My parents are gonna kill me.”_

_Her breathing started to get heavy and there were tears starting to pool around her eyes. She had come from a long line of revered scientists and she just broke the family tradition._

_Marcus stood uncomfortably in front of her, completely at a loss on how to make her feel better. It was his fault, after all. If only he woke up earlier, he never would've needed to run to class._

_“What department?”_

_He cringed inwardly. What a stupid thing to say. She probably didn’t need to hear more about it from him._

_“Biology,” she answered. She seemed oblivious to his fidgeting body._

_“Well, there’s the medical exam next week,” he offered. “I know because my exam is right before.”_

_She sighed, although still appreciating his effort._

_“I don’t want to be a doctor, Marcus. I’m going to be a biologist.”_

_“But you said earlier that you were a doctor,” he points out, his voice quiet and reluctant. “Sorry, I must have misunderstood.”_

_“It was just a dream.”_

_Marcus sat down on the chair in defeat. She felt sorry for him. She probably wasn’t making this easy._

_“My mother always said that dreams held people’s true desires.”_

_She looked at him as if he was the most complicated thing she had ever seen in her life. She suddenly remembered why he looked so familiar. He was Vera’s son._

_She always liked listening to Vera talk. Her parents never approved. They never had much patience for matters that didn’t come with an extensive scientific explanation. But she would sneak out sometimes to listen to Vera talk about hope and faith. She remembered Marcus always sitting on the front row._

_A week passed and she was about to enter the exam room when she almost ran into someone._

_“Sorry. Are you-”_

_“Marcus?”_

_She can’t believe her eyes. It was him. She looked up and smiled, suddenly conscious of how tiny she was compared to him._

_“Abby, I’m sorry.” He seemed breathless._

_“I think you like running into me,” she teased._

_He frowned and it occurred to her that he still felt pretty badly about the whole incident. But she wasn’t._

_“Relax, it was a joke.” Her hand reached out to give his arm a gentle squeeze._

_They stood awkwardly, their eyes never quite reaching each other’s gazes but never fully avoiding it either. His eyes were an astonishingly beautiful shade of hazel and she liked looking into them._

_She suddenly felt lightheaded._

_“I should go. I’m gonna be late.”_

_She waved him goodbye before disappearing into the exam room. She watched a woman change the banner from “Security” to “Medical” as she sat down on a table. Marcus stayed on her mind as she took the exam._

Marcus remembered the incident well. It was crystal clear in his memories. How could he ever forget the moment he met Abby? He knew it even then that she was the one.

It took him longer to realize, though, that she actually decided to take the medical exam. It was only until he looked for his name on the list of graduates for the Security Department when his eye caught her name on the list next to his. Her name was under medical.

“We never talked about that, you know,” he said.

“Well, we got so busy.”

She leaned back on her seat, letting the exhaustion in her bones seep into view.

She wasn’t wrong. After passing the exam, she got deeply engrossed in her training and was equally hard-pressed in ignoring her parent’s criticisms. She never found the time to do anything that didn’t require putting on gloves and sticking a needle into someone.

“But thanks to me, you became a doctor.”

She looked at him, incredulous. The grin is back on his face. So that’s where he was heading with this conversation.

“Are you suggesting that my career took off because of you?”

“It crossed my mind.”

“I disagree.”

“I never knew you when you didn’t.”

She crumpled a piece of paper and threw it in his direction. Marcus let it hit him on the chest, feigning shock at the assault.

“Besides, that’s not how we first met. I always saw you around the Ark.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t count.”

“Enlighten me then, oh, wise one,” she exhaled dramatically.

“Well, did you know my name before then?”

She thought about it, convinced that yes, of course she would know his name before that day. But she couldn’t think of a moment when she even spoke to him. It’s true that she’d seen him around but they never ran in the same circles. 

She gives up. “No, I guess not.”

“Did we ever had class together?”

“No,” she answered in defeat. “I was homeschooled. You know that.”

“Then that settles it. We met when I bumped into you.”

She laughed.

“Bumped? You mean when you smashed into me so hard that I woke up two days later?”

He pouted in response, in that childlike way of his that makes her want to smack him upside the head and kiss him all at once.

She stood up and walked over to him. “Lie down.”

He did as he was told, a smirk on his face and a dark glint in his eyes.

She lay on top of him, the length of her body matching his, and placed her elbows on his chest. She pressed her lips against his and kissed him deeply, tasting him, exploring paths as if it were new.

“I thought you were cute, though,” she whispered, breaking the kiss. “I liked your hair.”

She ran her fingers through them, liking how soft they were under her touch. It hasn’t changed a bit except that it suited him better now. It’s a lighter shade of brown than before and there are grey streaks of hair peppering here and there.

“You thought I was cute?” He lost his playful mood, replaced by genuine curiosity and disbelief. His hands moved to her back and rubbed circles on where he knows is causing her tensions.

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“I don’t know,” he laughed. “I thought I was weird.”

“You were dark and mysterious,” she mused. “I liked that you were interesting.”

“Thanks for trying.”

“What did you think of me?”

His hands migrated from her back to her braid, untying it and loosening her hair gently. She rested her head on his strong chest and felt him breathe as she started to relax.

“I liked your smile and your laugh. I liked how bright your eyes were.”

She hummed against him in amusement when she heard his heartbeat quicken. Although she knows he finds her alluring, hearing the words out loud flattered her. She felt her cheeks warming up and she can only thank her lucky stars that he couldn’t see her skin starting to burn bright red.

“What else?”

“I’m pretty sure I fell in love with you.”

Her breath hitched at his admission. She knows he loves her now and that’s she feels the same way. But it didn’t occur to her that he had loved her all these years. Sure, she felt something for him then but she was determined to label it as some silly, mindless crush. 

And then she married Jake, had Clarke, and became the head of medical. Needles to say, a lot of things conveniently distracted her from thinking too deeply about her feelings for Marcus. Besides, he changed. And she started to resent him.

“I didn’t know that.”

Her voice was so low that she wasn’t even sure if she said them out loud.

“I think it was for the best.”

She looked up at him, curious. 

“If you could go back, would you do anything different?”

He stared at her and smiled. There was also a pang of sorrow that crawled to his chest. 

Her question wasn’t as simple as it seemed. No, she was asking about them when they were younger. Would he have pursued her if he knew then what he knows now?

“No.”

Her brows furrowed. 

“Why not?”

“We never would’ve made it work,” he sighed, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I was different then.”

“And I was with Jake.”

“That, too.”

Disappointment washed over her face and maybe even guilt at the prospect of how differently her life might have changed if only he had asked something more of her. She wanted to tell him that she did wait for him. But that was a lifetime ago. 

“Abby, look at me.” He smiled at her. “Why would I change a thing when everything that happened led to this?”

A tear skimmed down her cheek as she kissed him. He was right. Even though she wished she spent more time with him, that also meant never having Clarke. And she did love Jake. 

It really was for the best, even if it didn’t feel like it. The bond between them now never would have been as strong. Never would have been so potent if they didn’t go through life together as enemies, as friends, and as lovers.

She broke the kiss.

“I love you, Marcus. You know that right?”

He gave her a smile that was a touch too sinful, letting her know that she isn’t going to get much sleep tonight. “How much?”

Without breaking eye contact, her hands moved to the hem of his shirt.

“I guess I’m gonna have to show you how much.”

**Author's Note:**

> What did y’all think? Thanks for reading! xo


End file.
